Consider an organization
into which no one can be admitted
until a bed at the inn becomes vacant ...
    by virtue of the death of its previous occupant.
There are twenty-one beds (including roll-aways)
    and once assigned
each member keeps that bed as lifetime privilege.

Consider an organization
    which meets three days a year
in a charred and burnt revolutionary kitchen
    (the American revolution, that is)
filled with a table, twenty-one chairs,
    and smoke from an ever-burning fireplace
    over whose flames, on the final afternoon,
ribs of beef and pork are turned
    for the starving carnivores of the assemblage
whose meals have consisted of three course breakfasts,
    four course lunches
    and seven course dinners.

Consider an organization
    which this past weekend met for the ninety-eighth time
which first accepted women as members a dozen years ago.

Consider an organization
    whose treasurer's report
    (known as The Keeper of the Purse)
consisted this year of the following and nothing more:

    When John died, he left two sons.
    The son who lived at a distance
        phoned the one who was local
    and told him to spare no expense to do right by their father:
    he'd pay the bill.
    Next month, he received a bill from his brother
    for $200. Seemed reasonable. He paid.
    Next month, his brother sent him a second bill
    for $200. The out-of-towner reflected
    that there are always expenses
        whose invoice is delayed. He paid.
    There was a $200. bill the third month
    and then another the fourth.
    This became too much.
    So he made a call to his brother
        asking the reason for the month-after-month
            billings.
    "O well," said the brother,
    "you said you wanted to give Dad the best.
    So I rented him a tuxedo."

The keeper of the Purse sits down
to the customary silence which annually greets his report
and the chair moves to the next order of business.

Consider an organization
    of Unitarian Universalist ministers
        - for such it is -
whose ages range from the late thirties to the mid-eighties,
who have served churches in Caribou Maine
    Sun City Arizona
    San Antonio Texas
    Medford Massachusetts
some have served the largest churches in our denomination
    and some the struggling smallest,
all of whom are aware of the ravages of age
    and the increasing presence of infirmity.
Surgeries and medications are topics of general interest.

Consider an organization
    of mostly agnostic and even atheistic clergy
whose most sacred and treasured ritual
is the final - Wednesday morning - communion service
            with bread and wine
just before departure
    when members reassure one another:
        Best retreat ever!

This is The Fraters of the Wayside Inn
who in retreat
worship,
share the happenings of their ministries and lives,
inquire of personal and spousal health,
reminisce - occasionally generously - of long gone members,
prepare, listen to and comment on
    four or five papers upon assigned topics.
This year worship services and papers alike
per order of the prior
were directed to the topic:
    The Core of Unitarian Universalism.

Neither a very intellectual
nor a very successful
nor, yet, a very renowned group of clergy.
The phrase `motley crew' comes to mind
    as reasonably apt.
Two Fraters (the less motley, you might say)
    have served this church as minister.

Like several other Fraters,
David Pohl, retired director of the denomination's
    Department of Ministry,
was once a member of The Greenfield Group
also a ministers' conference
which meets once a year.
David was musing
why he chose to relinquish membership in The Greenfield Group
    but remains a Frater.

The Greenfield Group, he observed
(and those who had been members knew well),
is a brittle group.
Membership requires completion of assigned readings;
papers are submitted for critical judgment and comment;
the work, say members, is the purpose of the group,
    study held to rigorous standard.
Presentations are publicly critiqued
    almost universally found wanting
as means of demonstrating the commentators'
eminent credentials for continued acceptance
by The Greenfield Group.

There is neither engagement with nor appreciation for life-story
    or the personal experience an individual brings.
Concern and interest are for insight evidenced
        and research demonstrated.
Scholarship, says the Greenfield group, is impersonal
and therefore we meet impersonally.

The contrast with Fraters is revealed as much by name
    as anything.
Fraters is a misspent effort at the Latin word for brothers
    which, because some Universalist minister
    almost a century ago, named or misnamed,
    has been carefully preserved ever since.
We are Fraters out of respect for the memory of the ancestors
    and not because we don't know how to handle
        fifth declension nouns.
That's the way it is with communities
    let the Greenfield people pass judgment
        and try to correct us
all they like. We value our traditions.

Oh certainly the Fraters recognize that ministry
    requires study and depth.
Recent papers delivered at Fraters
    have been subsequently published
        in denominational journals.

But what about the time Frater Earle,
hopelessly stuck (I use both words carefully)
    in the northernmost Universalist church in Maine
- membership 37, temperature -37 -
reviewed Billy Graham's then latest best seller
    on the life and nature of angels?
The Fraters followed tradition,
each member responding to Earle's talk
one at a time, around the room.
Frater after Frater in order commented
on Earle's presentation
drawing from knowledge of what a good man
and minister
Earle was and how hard it must be at sixty
            not to be able to leave a church
            where you're neither wanted nor want to be -
each Frater paid tribute to Earle
individual and Frater:
    the honor it was to be with him in the group,
    and how generous it was of him
        displaying true Universalist spirit
    to find worthwhileness in the book of the angels.

Earle is now in his late seventies,
his wife and true helpmate
    died three or four years ago.
Once a strapping six-plus footer
    he is now bent over to five-sixths his stature.
He lives - after a lifetime of service in our ministry -
    in the most modest of circumstances
    the funds that keep him above poverty
thanks primarily to Fraters in high denominational posts.

Earle didn't come to Sudbury this year.
He was afraid of the predicted snow
and, even though he would be riding with Ray,
    decided he dare not risk the trip.
We were, all of us, disturbed and sobered by his absence
and its message of Earle's frailty and mortality.

His bed and roommate will await him next year.
And as any other Frater
    who was absent at this retreat:
Earle will receive a personal letter
    from one of the Fraters present
who requested to write him on behalf of us all.
One recipient of such a letter is ninety-three
    and has not been to the inn
        at least since I first went thirty years ago.
Richard receives a letter every year.

We are speaking about the difference
    between a group and a community.

Richard Speck writes

    Community is central to our continuing
        to have a liberal faith

Richard Speck relates community to covenant and caring.
I think the connection is legitimate.
A community is creation
and manifestation of
shared commitment to each other (caring)
and also to the gathering (covenant).

As we are a community - a spiritual community -
we are the embodiment of both
    a promise to one another
        to be interested
        to be concerned
        to be helpful     and
    a promise to the community
        to work for its welfare
        to determine its goals
        to ensure its future
to treat it with respect.

Charles Howe, Frater, friend and historian
to my mind rightfully takes exception
to Speck's claim that community
    is the central core of the liberal faith.

In the first place, Charles says, community
has been a denominational emphasis
    for no more than the past forty or so years.
It is not a historic Unitarian Universalist emphasis.

More important as far as I am concerned
is Charles's observation that emphasis on community
    is not in our time unique to Unitarian Universalism.

I agree.
Yet I would go even farther than Charles.
I seriously contend that religion,
whatever its nature and whatever its form,
is always grounded in community.
True of all religion. World-wide and age-wide.

Religion is by its very nature
    a social phenomenon.

I claim that while we may be spiritual in isolation:
we can only be religious
    as we are and participate in community ...
with whomever it is that comprises our religious community.

Which indeed makes sense if,
as much contemporary thought states,
the function of religion
is to inform us how we fit in
    and to provide means for us to do so.

Religion, as Martin Buber so clearly saw,
    is relational
for, like those of all other animals,
    our lives exist in relationship.
Religion tells us how we fit in ---
    how and why the relationship exists and is served.
Hence the need for religion to provide
        theology
        ritual
        service.

Trappist monks - such as Thomas Merton -
who never speak to one another
    nor members of the outside world
share worship, meals, the hours, chores.
They are in community
because they share a covenant
    with one another, with the Church and with God
which is expressed in large measure
in common belief, common ritual and common service.
It is primarily of the ritual of the Fraters I have spoken this morning.

Ritual is essential to community.
Newcomers to communities
    - such as churches and synagogues -
are often required to spend months
        and even years
to learn the rituals
which are taken for granted by the old-timers.

When Brad Greeley and I lead workshops on ministry
we challenge our colleagues with the question:
    What do you bring
        when you enter the hospital room
            of a dying person?
Brad is very clear
    in his response:
clergy bring the shared religious community
    of which they are part
        when they come to a bedside.

Until recently Brad had defined himself
    as an atheist.
Twenty years and more ago
    he wrote a denominationally published pamphlet:
    The Faith of an Atheist.

I have the distinct impression
    that recently Brad has begun to see the light ...
or, more precisely, my light.
I note that next Sunday's sermon is entitled:
    The Agnostic Answer.
The newsletter blurb describing the sermon begins
with the immortal words:
    Some of my best friends are agnostics

In the peculiar way ministers can identify themselves
    as agnostic or atheist
and yet keep talking
    (always keep talking) about God
I asked Brad the other day
if he identified God with community,
    his highest value.
I was remembering Robert Louis Stevenson's remark
that God and his physician
    entered his sickroom
arm in arm.

Following Henry Nelson Weiman,
Brad says that God is another word
    for `creative interchange'.
Creative interchange, he continues,
    is the force that makes community
while at the same time community
    is where creative interchange takes place:
        where we meet God.

Although I do not use Weiman's phrase:
it seems to me the presence and action
    of creative interchange
is the difference between Fraters
    and Greenfield,
between a community and a group.

To engage in creative interchange
we must bring our entire selves
    not just our intellect
    nor yet again our critical power
    nor merely our defenses.

To engage in creative interchange
we must bring all that we are ...
    who we are when we are truly open
        and even vulnerable
to our encounters with each other
as to our engagement in community.

And, because we seek to be community,
we must know that others do the same
    listen and be heard
    care and be cared for
    work for common good
        be assured others do the same
        and know that the community works for us
    give to the community
        and experience that the community gives to us
    change (which is why it is creative) because of the community
        and know that others change because of us
        and that the community changes because of our participation.

Richard Speck says it is essential
    that a church be a community ...
because only there can we engage as whole, full-dimensioned people.
And only there can we meet other full persons.
And only in such an encounter
    can we be full and growing human beings.

Only in such a gathering
        - a community -
can the church serve our highest ideals.

The fire came three years ago next Thursday.
Is not the strength that is in community
the lesson
    of the past three years?



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